


The P Word

by sebviathan



Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Demonic Possession, Demons, Happy Ending, M/M, Psychological Torture, Psychtober, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:17:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebviathan/pseuds/sebviathan
Summary: Shawn has seen enough movies to know how this plays out:A demon possesses someone, it assimilates to their life and settles in some sense of normalcy, and then it starts screwing around. Fucking up relationships, behaving recklessly—making drastic, uncharacteristic decisions.Soon enough someone close to the possessee realizes that something is up, and the demon gets exorcised one way or another.





	1. Chapter 1

Shawn wouldn't normally have taken a case like this. He and Gus have a policy, whenever they receive a request to help with any kind of ghost or demon haunting, to refer them to both a local ghost-buster and mental health professional. It's common enough that they've had special cards made.

But this client has given them something not common at all with these sorts of requests—concrete evidence. A video that, considering the very real fear Shawn could see in the girl, has almost certainly not been doctored for any ulterior motive.

Early this afternoon, Michelle Stern came into the Psych office and showed them a recording of her bedroom's window, drawers, and door discordantly opening and closing of their own volition for a straight minute. In the background Shawn could even hear a low, static-y voice.

And that about settled it. For him, at least.

"I don't mess with demons, Shawn," Gus repeats many times after they're already in Michelle's house, and  _refuses_  to listen each time Shawn insists that he's obviously not going to have to.

"There's only evidence that  _someone_  is messing with her," he explains for the umpteenth time. "Not that it has to be a ghost or a demon."

Though he can't find any evidence of tampering having been done with Michelle's room, like he figured he might. No strings or hidden cameras or any other little gadgets. He decides not to mention that to Gus.

"Listen, I get that you're not religious, Shawn—and I can respect that enough, but that doesn't make the idea of demons unrealistic." That, he says with a considerable amount of contempt.

Shawn rolls his eyes. "Gus, don't be Rosemary's Baby. When has it  _ever_  actually been a real haunting? Robert and Regina—multiple personalities. Doreen's 'ghost'—Alice Bundy. Hell, it all stemmed from an urban legend that  _we_  started! Then, of course, the haunting of Mr. Have-a-ham—"

"Haversham."

"—heard it both ways—"

"You most certainly have not—"

"—that was done by just  _me_  and a little hired help! And did you forget about ' _Wilting Flower_ '?"

At that, Gus just frowns and silently continues helping Shawn look around for evidence that's a little bit more on this mortal plane.

As the night continues (and as nothing very unnatural happens at all), however, he grows no less anxious or less willing to believe that every tiny sound he hears is a demon coming to eat him.

"There are much scarier things a demon could do than eat me," Gus mutters under his breath when Shawn brings it up.

He doesn't dignify that with a response.

Given their lack of ghostly experience tonight, and that Michelle told them it seems to be attached to the house and not  _her_  because it never follows her out, Shawn can be sure that whoever is "haunting" her must be someone who wouldknow that she isn't home right now.

" _Or_ ," Gus starts, at which Shawn is already rolling his eyes, "it might be  _stuck_  here, but it only wants to torment her. Maybe it doesn't want her to live in its house but it has no problem with us because we're only staying for the night! Or maybe—"

"Well  _shit_ , Gus, are you afraid of the 'demon' in here or not?" Shawn breathes a laugh, which seems to really piss Gus off. In this instance, that only fuels him more. "If it doesn't have a problem with us, what's there to be afraid of?"

He can't reasonably argue with that, which Shawn can tell is rough on him.

"...Nevermind, then—it was just a theory. Let's just go to sleep and talk to the neighbors in the morning."

Gus then aggressively lies down on the blanket they've set up on the floor and jerks the covers over himself, leaving Shawn just barely enough to cover his own body. It's indiscernible from any other time he's been petty at a sleepover.

Seems that he forgot how every single one of those times, Shawn has never failed to be petty right back.

"You know what—fine, Gus," he sighs. "I'll indulge your little theory."

Gus immediately loosens his grip on the blankets and faces him again. "You will?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not. Maybe the demon just thinks we're too cool to haunt, right? Maybe it agrees with us about the ending of Lost and whether or not pineapple should go on pizza, so we're off-limits. And as long as we're off-limits, we won't have any proof! Hey demon, you don't have to be intimidated by us! Why don't you come out—?"

"Shawn, what are you doing?" As Gus says that, some papers fall off of Michelle's desk. His immediately shoots up. "There, you proved  _both_  our points. Let's just leave."

"Eh, that could easily have just been the wind," he shrugs, sitting up as well. Then he addresses the empty space: "If that was you, demon, I think you can do better. Scratch my stomach or drag me to hell or something, come on!"

Gus shoots him a look of utter terror, but all that happens in the next few seconds is the paper sliding across the floor. Shawn hears him let out a small sigh of relief—and then remembers what Gus said earlier about there being 'worse things' a demon could do than eat you.  _Why not?_

"Alright, fair enough, maybe I set the bar a little too high," he continues. "But you're gonna have to give us  _something_  if I'm supposed to believe there's actually a demon in here. That's what  _you_  want, isn't it, Gus?"

"You know damn well it isn't—"

"Tell you what, demon, you can go ahead and possess my meat-sack. In fact,  _please_  do. I'm  _dying_  to see some proof of you and I'm not really using it at the moment, anyway. It's a win-win!"

Now, Gus simply stares at him for several seconds of silence.

"...Literally inviting a demon to possess you has to be the  _dumbest_ thing you've ever done, Shawn."

"Well, possession is pretty underwhelming so far—"

_I always liked the name 'Shawn.' My own isn't pronounceable with your vocal chords. It'll be a fine substitute._

He hears the words low and almost melodic—and as clearly as if they were whispered in his ear, and then he is... gone.

No, wait, his body still certainly exists, and he is still in it—he feels the  _sensation_  of his elbows buckling and an intense shiver running down his spine and his face contorting... but no control over it. Like paralysis. Still yet, he catches himself. Or he...  _is_  caught.

 _What the hell,_  he tries to say, but his mouth doesn't move.

His face should be stiff in fear and confusion, right now. Instead, he feels his mouth stretch into a grin.

Gus, who of  _all_ people should be freaking out, merely sighs and lies back down, taking the blankets with him once again.

"Very funny, Shawn. Wake me up when you've decided to stop being a dick."

_Gus, you don't understand—_

Again, his mouth won't even vaguely twitch in the shape of the words. He lets out a chuckle instead.

 _You know, for a guy who's supposed to be some kind of genius detective,_  comes the voice from before,  _you sure are slow to this one._

But other than that, it doesn't seem very concerned with him or his questions. It just stands up—using his body—and proceeds to stuff his mouth with most of Michelle's fridge, addressing him only once more before the night is up:

"Thank you—sincerely,  _so_  much, for the meat-sack."

 

*

 

Gus and the thing piloting Shawn continue to "investigate" Michelle's haunting the next morning—figuring out what enemies she may have, who would have the means to rig her home... And they of course come up dry.

Michelle, however, takes their report of zero spooky behavior to mean that it's safe to resume sleeping at home. And after a few days, she comes back to the office with a check in return for presumably busting her ghosts.

"Huh," Gus says once she leaves. "Maybe whoever was fake-haunting her decided it wasn't worth the risk of getting caught once they saw us, or something... Guess we'll never know."

"I'm starting to think that maybe there was a demon in there after all," says Shawn, from Gus's perspective. The real Shawn would laugh if it wasn't at his expense. "Whatever it was, at least we got paid, huh?"

"I hear that. But—you think we should leave the check alone for a bit just in case it starts happening again and Michelle wants a refund?"

"Gus, I can guarantee you that whatever was happening will  _not_  start up again."

Shawn has seen enough movies to know how this plays out: A demon possesses someone, it assimilates to their life and settles in some sense of normalcy, and then it starts screwing around. Fucking up relationships, behaving recklessly—making drastic, uncharacteristic decisions. Soon enough someone close to the possessee realizes that something is up, and the demon gets exorcised one way or another.

So he figures he's better off simply bearing it and  _not_  straining himself while he waits for Gus to come to his rescue. He's confident that it'll happen.

But days pass and the demon does almost nothing that Shawn wouldn't do himself. It hangs out in the Psych office with Gus, it watches movies, it eats all the junk he usually eats and more, it drives around aimlessly on his motorcycle, it gets distracted by bubblewrap and pendulums and silly putty and hourglasses... it even goes out and buys Gus a smoothie as an  _apology_  for what a dick the real Shawn was, that night.

That alone gets him, but the most baffling thing to Shawn is that it not only takes another case, but _solves_  it. Fake visions and all. If Shawn wasn't himself and trapped, powerless, inside his own body, he'd have no idea anything had changed.

 _Alright, I don't get it,_  he finally says—or thinks, or however exactly he's communicating in here, mentally throwing his arms up.  _What the fuck gives? Where's the torture? I would understand on_ some _level if you were just getting sadistic pleasure from messing with my life, but this is just... a step up from identity theft, at best._

He feels his mouth physically curl into a small smile, and then hears,  _Disappointed?_

Now he thinks he should be insulted.  _I'm fucking confused, is what I am._

His body is currently in the passenger's seat of Gus's car, and Shawn gets the feeling that the only reason the demon doesn't immediately respond is because it prefers to speak verbally. That feeling proves to be correct when, the moment Gus parks outside a gas station and leaves the car, the demon stretches and says,

"You don't even know how long it's been since I could have as simple a pleasure as  _that_ , Shawn. Just try to imagine being incorporeal for a second. You can't. Right now doesn't count—you're still  _in_  a body, you just aren't the pilot. You still get to feel things. You get to taste what I eat! And honestly, of all things, you humans  _really_  underappreciate tasting. You can't possibly understand what it's like to exist with mere sight and hearing and very little ability to manipulate the physical world if  _any_... Ugh. It  _sucks_ , Shawn. It really fucking blows. And I had to deal with it for such a long time that I really think I  _deserve_  a bit of a mortal vacation—don't you agree?"

In principle... yes. He can't help but see its side, and that scares him.

"There's no reason to be afraid of that," it says immediately, catching him off guard. "We're not very different at all—and I'm not saying that in an Al Pacino to Robert De Niro in Heat kinda way, I mean there's a  _reason_  I possessed you."

Shawn was under the impression that it was because he invited it.

"Nah, the invitation didn't matter. It was just fun timing."

The demon laughs, and Shawn is suddenly immersed in memories of that night—but not his own. He's watching Gus  _and_  himself from the demon's point of view.

"If you hadn't said that, I'd probably have just let you keep going—honestly, I wanted to see exactly how much you might push the joke, but at that point I couldn't resist. I mean, how often do you get a setup like _that_? Better yet, I knew that you would appreciate it, too. At least on some level. I could tell we had the same flair for the dramatic."

 _So—what, you can only possess people who are already similar to you?_  The very notion would make Shawn sick to his stomach if he still had one. Or if he wasn't already sort of existing in a state of perpetual nausea.

"Well, I don't  _have_  to. It's not a demon thing—more a  _me_  thing. You got all your supernatural shows talking about how the emotionally vulnerable are more susceptible to possession—and that's true, yeah. Like, your friend Gus would have been a hundred times easier to get inside. And most demons, if in a room with you two,  _absolutely_  would've gone for him. But what matters to me much more than the ease of slipping in, is what happens once I  _am_  in."

Shawn is starting to understand, and subsequently wishing that he didn't.

"Dude, you would not believe how _refreshing_  it is to finally be in a body where I don't have to put on a face. I can just be me, and it's almost the same thing as being you!"

This doesn't have to mean anything bad about  _him_ , he's sure. Some demons used to be people, right? So a guy with his sense of humor died and went to Hell and came back as a demon, or made a deal with one or something. Or an angel with his personality fell. Those definitely sound like things he'd do.

The demon lets out a short laugh. "I know it's kind of the pot calling the kettle black, but don't toot your horn too much, Shawn... I only really decided how alike we were once I saw what a dick you were being to Gus, and shit, it was a little needless even for me—"

_NO._

For the first time since being possessed, Shawn manages to scream—not with his mouth, but loudly enough in his head and with his bare rage to be startling, to disarm the demon in some way. He refuses to listen to this, he refuses to believe he is  _anything_  like the thing living inside of him, and for a few hot seconds that refusal empowers him.

His hand moves—and it's actually  _his_  hand, again—to the cigarette lighter in Gus's car, then to his opposite wrist.

" _AUGH—FUCK—!_ "

He doesn't know whether it's the physical pain, or if the demon's scream disarmed  _him_ , or if he only naturally could have regained power over his body for so long, but Shawn is suddenly in the back seat again.

The demon clutches Shawn's burnt wrist and seethes, and he can feel its anger coursing through his body even worse than the pain. Something tells him that this is mere annoyance compared to what it's capable of, but he's glad to know it  _can_ feel pain at all.

Seconds later, they spot Gus on his way out of the gas station, several bags of candy and jerky under his arms. The demon immediately puts the lighter back, hides the burn, and lets out a sort of impressed laugh.

Shawn doesn't know whether or not he should be flattered.

 

*

 

"I can't believe you thought  _that_  would be enough to push me out. Well—I  _can_  believe it, since I'm in your brain and I can see your memories and thought processes and everything... I guess what I'm saying is that I can't believe you drew inspiration from a scene from  _Heathers_. That wasn't even a demon movie!"

It was more about the emotion in the moment, Shawn thinks, vaguely. The demon doesn't care to argue it further as it searches the bathroom for a band-aid to put over the burn.

And just as the demon is in  _his_  brain, Shawn has surface-level access to its thoughts. At the moment, it's deliberating on whether or not a band-aid would be enough to keep questions at bay. The wrists are a common place for humans to self-harm, after all, and Shawn has a lot of people who care about him.

It soon decides that no, it isn't enough, and searches the drawers instead.

"Congratulations, Shawn," it tells him, making eye contact through the mirror. "All you did was burn yourself and slightly inconvenience me. Now you have to wear one of these stupid wristbands that haven't been worn unironically since 2002. I hope for both our sakes that you can pull it off."

After that, it leaves the bathroom and plops Shawn's ass down on the couch next to Gus's, piles of movie-watching candy between them.

"Were you ranting about Heathers to yourself in the bathroom?" Gus asks with a raised eyebrow, giving Shawn a bit of hope.

But the demon is inspired.

"...The likelihood that anyone would believe an  _entire_ high school signed a suicide pact is about zero, Gus. What was even the point of JD getting signatures if he was gonna blow himself up, too?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering about the "era" here, I make a point of leaving it kinda ambiguous so as to leave the events of this fic in a vaccuum. But as far as "how much time has passed since they met" goes, it's about s3-4.


	2. Chapter 2

Joel Baker. Mid-forties. Caucasian. Cause of death: sausages, shoved down this throat whole and blocking off his windpipe.

It's  _just_ the degree of odd that not only can Carlton not be surprised whatsoever to see Spencer at the crime scene, but he can't even be all that annoyed. At least not to begin with.

There's no evidence that Carlton or O'Hara or CSI can see that Baker didn't do it to himself (in possibly some compulsion or delusion or otherwise particularly masochistic suicide), but, expectedly, Spencer still launches into a "vision"—a little more obnoxious than usual—and announces that it was murder.

As usual, as well as he knows that Spencer will almost certainly wind up solving this, Carlton can't see whatever it is he sees. So he has no choice but to follow his own faculties and keep a straight head.

And most of the rest of the case also proceeds as usual. Which is to say utterly chaotic and unpredictable because there's truly no such thing as " _usual_ " when Spencer is involved...

But something feels a little off about him, somehow. He can't quite put his finger on it.

He isn't dressing or wearing his hair differently—Carlton can see that for sure. He looks like he hasn't gotten much sleep, but Carlton has to look closely to see that and it's common enough for Spencer anyway.

Maybe it's that he seems... happier? Carlton definitely catches him with a grin more often than not over the next few days. Though he has to doubt that  _that_ is what feels so weird to him when he's pretty sure Spencer has been in good moods before that  _didn't_  make him so suspicious. Only more obnoxious.

Very briefly, he considers putting his curiosity to bed and just  _asking_  him—and that's what makes him realize:

In four whole days, Spencer has barely said a single word to him when Carlton didn't speak first. Not even to tease him about his hair or his tie or... anything else.

And all that he  _can_  recall Spencer saying to or about him, prompted or not?

It's—he hates to be thinking about it like this, he hates that it  _matters_ to him, but... it's all been  _mean_. Not so mean that it crosses a line but mean enough that, now that he really thinks about it, it's all been worse than some friendly teasing. If there's one  _usual_  with Spencer, it's that he buffers his bullshit with weird compliments. Carlton doesn't think he's heard a single kind word about himself from Spencer during this case.

He tries very hard to ignore the pang that puts in his chest.

Now, he'd at least guess that Spencer has simply been in a  _bad_  mood—if not for the otherwise lack of change in behavior. It admittedly gets to him more than it should and he finds himself with less and less patience for his antics as the case comes to a close.

Particularly as he notices him hanging over O'Hara's desk and very  _overtly_  flirting with her. More like  _at_  her.

While he might normally just ignore it in favor of working on the case and let his blood only boil internally, he immediately shouts right across the station—

"SPENCER!"

The man in question doesn't jump, but merely turns around, and then shuffles casually up to him.

"What'chu want, Carly?"

He can't help it; he flinches. He hasn't heard  _that_  nickname in a while.

"For you to get your ass moving on that lead you claimed to 'psychically' have and to  _quit_  distracting my partner," he tells him, scowling.

Spencer sticks his bottom lips out in a pout. "Someone sounds jealous."

His heart stops, but he doesn't let his expression fall. .

"What?"

"Well, you  _did_  just call me over here so I could distract  _you_  instead, Lassie," he says, followed by a scoff, and then a poke to Carlton's chest. "As a matter of fact, I have a case to go... rub my ass on. Quit distracting  _me_!"

Baffled and disoriented, he watches Spencer throw his arms up and finally march out of the station. Even knowing that he accomplished what he meant to, it isn't satisfying in the least.

He's even more inclined, now—or after a minute or so of fuming and getting distracted by his own thoughts at his desk—to go to O'Hara's and ask,

"Have you noticed Spencer acting strange, lately?"

She jumps just slightly in her seat (at which he figures he should have given her some warning), but quickly shrugs and says, "When is he  _not_  acting strange?"

He should have expected that answer. But the first way he can think to explain what he means is that Spencer isn't  _flirting_  with him like he often does—which he  _cannot_  say. Otherwise, he struggles to find some un-incriminating words based on his actual observations.

_I can't find any mirth in his eyes when he normally exudes so much_ , he mentally reiterates.  _For all his stupid confidence, it isn't normally this unwavering._

But that would paint him as obsessive and paying  _far_  too much attention over Spencer.

"I mean—does he seem like he's... acting sort of—dammit, like a  _caricatured_  version of himself, or something?" he manages to ask instead, though unable to keep the distress out of his voice.

His partner seems to think about that for a second.

"Well... I guess he's acting a little exaggerated, sure. But I feel like he just kind of does that, sometimes."

As she stares at him with concern, Carlton realizes that he's taken enough of her time—and furthermore, that she's probably right. He's probably just dug himself a hole of overthinking and he needs to get his mind the hell off of it.

So he leaves her alone and, as he often needs to, tries to forget about Spencer.

 

*

 

There's really something to be said for actually consulting for a  _police station_ , as opposed to simply working a private case.

Granted, the demon has only done one of each so far, but Shawn's memories are laid out and the differences are clear. He gets to solve something much  _bigger_ , like a murder. He gets to mess around with the SBPD and all its wacky characters—his favorite of which so far are McNab and Juliet, as they seem to be impressed with  _every_  little thing Shawn does. Best of all, he gets to walk into the station a day or so later and pick up a check from the  _government_  for basically just acting like a jackass!

He'd known that possessing Shawn would be a good investment before the fact, but shit, he never could have guessed what a fucking  _blast_ his life was.

Shawn can't exactly bring himself to disagree, but his boiling discontent with his life being stolen doesn't go unnoticed by what's piloting him. More often than not, it comes up as a burp. Gus keeps offering him tums for it.

Unfortunately, at the moment, it's just him. And Chief Vick is in the middle of something—though not anything that will take enough time for him to do any just-acceptably aggressive flirting with Jules. With such a small, awkward amount of wait time, he settles on the edge of an empty desk and starts messing with the paper clips.

Within the minute, he hears a low, clearly annoyed tone:

"Can I  _help_  you, Spencer?"

Noticing that the guy is bending a paperclip—one of  _his_  paperclips—into a shape, Carlton expects to hear something along the lines of "I don't know,  _can_ you?" or "Yeah, I could use some help making a miniature Eiffel Tower. I'll do the bottom pieces and you can get the top!" And he expects to have to hold back a smirk before getting serious.

But he barely even acknowledges his presence, at first.

"...Oh, this  _is_  your desk, isn't it," he says, sounding bored as he looks up. Then,  _astoundingly_ , he actually gets his ass off the desk unprompted. "But, uh... unless you have about twenty minutes to spare and a bottle of lotion, I don't think you can."

With that and just the slightest of smirks, Spencer starts to walk past him—and it isn't until they bump shoulders that Carlton realizes exactly what that's supposed to  _mean_. At once, despite his shock, he moves to grab him by the shoulder and forcibly turn him back around.

"What the hell is  _wrong_  with you?"

He's never been that direct or inappropriate before. He's never said anything that borders so closely on harassment, at least not to  _him_  before. Carlton knows this, Shawn knows this, and the demon—based on a quick review of some memories and what's going on  _now_ —knows this.

Shawn especially knows that Lassiter knows this and he desperately does  _not_ want Lassiter's image of him to become this, he can't bear it, he  _won't_ —

For just a split second, Carlton sees a change in Spencer's face. It's so brief but undeniably there—for just that moment, Spencer's eyes are wide and moist, and his jaw is stiff, and his skin is paling. For that moment he looks utterly terrified. Then, as though becoming an entirely different person (the person he was before?), he immediately relaxes and laughs.

"You're gonna have to let me get back to you on that one, Lassie. I'll email you the Excel doc."

Then the demon continues walking away, relieved, leaving Carlton the polar opposite.

 

*

 

Just like that, Carlton is back to over-thinking himself to death. But he figures he has a much more substantial reason, this time, as well as a much more solid idea to direct his worry at.

It takes a single night of near sleeplessness to convince him to forgo appearances and to just  _figure this out_.

He wakes up and even before showering he's fumbling with his wallet to find that business card that Guster handed him years ago, and which he probably hasn't taken out of its slot since he put it there. Back then he figured there would probably be a day that he'd need it, but he didn't imagine it would be for something like this. He couldn't have. He couldn't have possibly imagined that he'd  _care_  so much, let alone admit to himself that he does...

The business hours are luckily on the card along with the phone number. Carlton makes a point of waiting until Guster has been working for about an hour so this doesn't seem deliberate, meanwhile deliberately because he doesn't want a chance of Spencer interrupting.

"Burton Guster of Central Coast Pharmaceuticals," he answers.

It occurs to Carlton that he's never really heard Guster's professional voice before, and how much odder this makes his friendship with Spencer seem. But he doesn't waste more than a split second on that.

"It's Lassiter. I need—"

"You know this is my work line, right?" There's a great deal of surprise in his voice. "Hey—I don't think you've  _ever_  even called me on my other phone. If you can't get a hold of Shawn—"

" _No_ —no, I don't want to talk to him," Carlton says quickly, and slightly panicked. "I called you specifically for a reason. And I... admittedly, I don't think I ever actually saved your personal number, Guster. But I do need to ask  _you_  something, specifically."

There are a few moments of silence on the other end, and then,

"Okay, shoot."

He sounds like he can sense Carlton's urgency. Ironically, Carlton has trouble actually getting the question out there right away—for the same reason he hesitated with O'Hara a few days ago.

"...Do you know what's going on with Spencer?"

"What d'you mean? He not answering your calls or something?"

"I mean that something is—or, I've _noticed_... well." He sighs, vaguely ashamed of himself. He might as well be direct with it. "Is he sick?"

"Sick?"

"What, are you a parrot?  _Yes_ , sick. As in diseased."

He hears a scoff on the other end. " _Wow_ —"

"Not like that, Guster," he snaps. "I wouldn't call just to insult either of you, even if you  _do_  occasionally do the same to me—I'm asking, seriously...  _Is_  Shawn ill and/or dying?"

"Uh... not to my knowledge. And I'm pretty damn sure he'd tell me if he was. Um. Why?"

"So—you  _haven't_  noticed anything. In your... pharmaceutical experience."

"No. What's this about, Lassie?"

That sounds like genuine ignorance to him... which comes as both a great relief and a source of more confusion. Maybe Carlton's perception of things has just been overblown. Maybe he's just going crazy.

"...Nothing," he tells him, and he supposes it's not, in fact, a lie. "Thanks for your time, Guster."

 

*

 

Shawn managed to scratch himself in the face, that night. Whether as a result of new confidence from the Lassiter incident or of true mental strength, neither him nor the demon can be sure.

Regardless, it pisses the demon off, and there's nothing it can really do to hide the scratches. It does, however, make a note to file down Shawn's nails.

Gus immediately points out the band-aids on his face the next afternoon. Because of course he does.

"I was getting affectionate with a stray cat outside my apartment, and it betrayed me," the demon lies easily.

Gus doesn't hesitate to believe it. Shawn screams in frustration and can subsequently sense the burp coming up. And when it does,  _that_ seems to trigger something in Gus, who jolts up from his chair:

"Oh! Hey, I just remembered—you'll never believe who called me at work earlier."

The demon perks up in interest. "Halle Berry?"

Gus clicks his tongue. "I wish... It was actually  _Lassiter_."

"...He need your pharmaceutical expertise on a case or something?"

"That day  _will_  surely come, but no. He called to ask about  _you_ —if you were sick, or something."

The demon and Shawn inside both feel his heart skip a beat, but the former allows no sign of it on his face.

"Did he mean sick as in  _cool_?"

"No...," Gus says with an odd frown. "He definitely meant like a sickness."

"Like if I'm...  _down_  with the sickness?" The demon leans dangerously forward in Shawn's desk chair. Gus doesn't seem to want to give him the satisfaction of laughing at that.

"He thought you might be coming down with  _something_  or even dying—seemed pretty serious about it, too. What do you think might've given him that idea?"

The demon remembers the look that Shawn somehow managed to push through—that he didn't imagine would have much bearing, at the time. Mark this as the first time he's been wrong.  _There's no shame in that,_  he insists internally. If only to the guy he's possessing.

"...Call me Alicia Silverstone because I am  _clueless_."

Gus actually gives him an odd look at that one, but then, "You know what's even weirder? He used your first name at least once. And I don't think I've  _ever_  heard it coming out of his mouth unless followed by 'Spencer.' Not even much then."

"That  _is_  weird," the demon agrees, judging by Shawn's memories. "Maybe Lassie's the one coming down with something."

"Yeah, kinda sounded like it," Gus mutters, mostly to himself.

Shawn is suddenly fluttering with  _hope_  so uncomfortably that the demon simply  _has_  to put a stop to it.

_Aw, Detective Lassiter really does care about us._

In a split second, Shawn's essence starts burning instead. Just as planned.  _There is no 'us.'_

_...Fair enough. He cares about_ you _. Real sweet and unexpected and... all that jazz. Makes it slightly less stupid of you to care so much about_ him _... But since_ I'm _piloting for now, I wonder if I can't make that work for me?_

Oh, god.

Shawn puts in a sincere effort to burn as hot as he can.


	3. Chapter 3

It's been no secret to Shawn whatsoever, since the very beginning of the sausage case, how  _boring_  the demon thought Lassiter was. He's just about the only part of his life that it couldn't immediately get into.

Conscious thoughts that got through to the depths that Shawn is in includes ' _he's such a bummer_ ' and ' _all he does is interfere with the fun stuff_.' Things that Shawn might have thought about Lassie for just the first few weeks after he met him. But the demon has all of his memories and  _still_ came to that conclusion.

Lassiter is also... easily, the most complicated relationship in his life. Doesn't seem like the demon is very much into complicated things.

Now, the demon has decided that, contrary to its initial assumption that Detective Lassiter was stupid and useless, he is  _too observant for his own good_. Footnote:  _It's time to rectify that._

"So I underestimated him, yeah, so what? It is  _very_  easy to underestimate humans! Could the  _hare_  be blamed for assuming the tortoise would be slow? Except—trick question, it doesn't matter, because that story doesn't make any sense! That's such an imbalanced competition and would  _never_  happen in the first place!"

 _Jesus, is that what_ my _rants sound like to other people?_

"Whatever. Detective Lassiter wants some nuance? I got nuance for days, pal. I haven't even been  _trying_  until now."

The demon promptly makes use of Shawn's still-sharp fingernails and claws up his neck and chest with no apprehension. It digs right in there and drags his nails every which-way, watching in the mirror as the red lines form, spotted here and there with blood. It feels the pain, yes, but the future benefits outweigh the cost.

As well as the  _present_  benefit of Shawn having to feel the pain with it.

"Now that's an aesthetic," it smirks, admiring the finished mess of scratches across Shawn's chest.

The only ones that really matter are what's still visible when he's wearing a shirt, but it's the  _principle_  of the thing. Still, there's something missing.

With a quick glance to the wristband that's covering Shawn's cigarette lighter-burn, the demon gets an idea. While it can't reasonably go get in Gus's car tonight and use the lighter again, it can re-create more or less the same burn shape on the other wrist with a regular lighter and... a metal spoon. Maybe also a paperclip and a bottlecap.

It relishes the scream that Shawn lets out between them, and then considers its night done. Only thing left to do is make some purposefully sloppy work of covering it all up in the morning.

 

*

 

With nothing left to do about his (irrational, he's decided) concerns, Carlton buries himself in his work. No better way to get distracted from any and every emotion than reviewing old unsolved cases and cross-referencing with newer ones.

He almost feels like he could be over it entirely when he watches Spencer walk onto his floor only a few days later.

 _Nothing unusual about that,_  he tells himself.  _He dicks around here without cases all the time._ And Carlton has a personal policy of  _ignoring_  his presence unless it escalates to shenanigans, or unless Spencer comes to him. Occasionally, if he goes and flirts too loudly at O'Hara for comfort, too.

Spencer comes to neither of them, however. If he's headed toward anyone in particular, it seems to be McNab—and if he's going to interfere with  _McNab's_  work in any way, he'll probably help.

With that in mind, it is absolutely  _insane_  that Carlton stands up and walks over there to intercept him anyway.

Or maybe it isn't insane so much as a momentary lack of control over his impulses. His legs have carried him steps away from Spencer's back before he's entirely conscious of what he's doing, and by that point, he's come too far to  _not_  reach out for the man's shoulder.

"Sniffing around for another case  _already_ , Spencer?"

He's reasonably startled as Carlton turns him around, and for a moment his face looks the same as the expression Carlton noticed the other day. This time it's even odder.

"Well, crime never sleeps, does it?" Spencer says after a moment. "And neither do electricity bills."

 _And neither do you,_  Carlton can't help but think, noticing the bags under his eyes, and the nervous shake in his hand as he brings it up to scratch his neck, and his sloppier dress than usual, even in that wristband he's been wearing—

"What's that?" he asks quickly and suddenly breathlessly, narrowing his eyes and darting out his hand to grab Spencer's wrist.

This isn't something he'd normally do—that is, act like Spencer's life, let alone his  _body_  is any of his business—but he's also never seen such an obvious mark on him before... And halfway covered by a wristband, which was surely  _meant_  to cover it all the way, is a very large, circular burn. It looks recent.

It also draws his attention, as Spencer jerks his arm away, to the red, raised skin at the edges of his sleeves—and then above his collar, too.

Jesus. A lot of things are starting to make sense in a way he wished they wouldn't.

Spencer tries to walk away, and Carlton briefly considers letting him to save him the awkwardness—but his hand darts out again. He couldn't ignore this if he wanted to.

"It's  _nothing_ , Lassie, it's..."

He seems to trail off as Carlton puts an arm around his back and grips his opposite shoulder, like he often does while escorting him out of places he doesn't belong. This time, however, he's only escorting him somewhere more private. An empty conference room should do fine.

Then Carlton still finds himself leaning very close to him and being quiet as he asks, deathly serious,

"Spencer, is someone hurting you?"

Almost immediately, there it is. That  _look_ , again. Then he sighs and starts shaking his head.

"...Listen, it's not what you think—"

"There is a burn from a  _cigarette lighter_  on your wrist, Spencer, unless you—"

 _Shit, did he do it to himself?_  Oh, god. Has Carlton just humiliated the both of them in the worst way possible, has he—

"It's not that, either," Spencer assures him quickly. He then holds Carlton's gaze with a similar frown for several seconds before closing his eyes and shaking his head again, and saying, "I—god, this'll sound even crazier than I usually do, but it's... Fuck. I don't  _know_  who or what is doing this to me."

Carlton blinks. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean it's definitely not a domestic abuse thing, Lassie—I'm not dating anyone, I'm not even  _living_  with anyone, I—I just keep... waking up. And new scratches or burns are just  _there_. And I—dammit, I get it if you don't believe me... I probably wouldn't," he adds with an empty laugh, arms folded and gaze tilted to the floor.

For a moment or two, Carlton has no idea what to say. He's never seen Spencer like this before and he finds himself wishing terribly that he didn't have to. Then,

"And you haven't asked Guster to help you figure out what's—?"

"I've been  _hiding_  it from Gus, same way I've been hiding it from everyone else," he all but snaps. "Or trying to. But I can't possibly tell him—you see how much he worries, how  _anxious_  he gets... He'd probably immediately jump to some 'demonic' thing, and I don't need to deal with that."

It takes Carlton less than a second to think of the best solution to this, and he tells himself it's Spencer's  _safety_  and not necessarily Spencer's fear alone that convinces him to do it.

"I'll stake out your place tonight, then."

Spencer's head shoots up. "What?"

"I said I'll stake out your place tonight."

"Yeah, I got that part—I mean... Lassie, you don't have to—"

"Well, I don't know how else you expect me to help you unless I can see what's going on in and around your apartment when you're sleeping. It's happening  _then_ , so that's when I'll be able to catch it."

In the meantime, though, Carlton has a job to get back to. So he considers all the important bits covered and gives Spencer a mere pat on the shoulder before walking right out of the conference room.

And the very moment the door shuts, unbeknownst to him, "Spencer" straightens up and grins.

 

*

 

The first night, nothing happens. But Spencer already told him that he doesn't wake up with scratches  _every_  single morning, so Carlton was prepared to have to stay up more nights.

Mentally, that is. He's still exhausted through the next day and running on uselessly short power-naps and several liters of coffee by the time he starts a second watch. Not like he hasn't pulled consecutive sleepless days before, though. He considers this a decent cause.

The second night, he doesn't realize that anything has happened—or that he's more or less fallen asleep—until Spencer comes and knocks on his car window in the morning.

He wakes with a start and opens his eyes to a grave look on Spencer's face. Immediately somewhat sobered, Carlton rolls down the window.

"What happened?" Fuck, his mouth is dry.

Spencer just lifts up his shirt to show new scratches on his stomach—at which Carlton feels his heart in his throat, grits his teeth, and punches the steering wheel.

"God dammit—I'm so fucking sorry, Spencer, I shouldn't have let myself—"

" _Hey_ , it's... not as bad as some of the others," he says.

Carlton doesn't know why on earth Spencer would feel the need to comfort  _him_ , though. This is his  _job_  and if simply nodding off could prevent him from doing it, he should have done everything within his power to keep from doing so—

Unless... he did? He does know that if someone went and hurt Spencer while he was asleep, they had a very small window of doing so. There's simply no way he was out for more than a couple hours, and the sheer likelihood that it would happen  _in_  those couple hours...

Without saying another word, Carlton jerks the car door open and slams it shut as he marches across the parking lot to Spencer's apartment. He can only even be sure that Spencer has followed him once he's already inside, and he hears him say,

"Hey, uh, Lassie? What's up?"

"Have you noticed any of your food tasting different, Spencer?" he asks almost absentmindedly as he rummages through his pantry and fridge, smelling anything and everything that's been opened.

"Uh... no?"

Carlton's head snaps over to him once he thinks he's gone through all of it. There really isn't much in his pantries at all.

"How about your toothpaste? Mouthwash? ...Medication?"

He starts towards Spencer's bathroom, but then feels a hand grabbing his arm.

"Wait—you think someone's drugging me?"

"It's looking like a firm possibility right now," he confirms. Though the fact that Spencer himself didn't already think about that seems odd. "...And if they are, they might have drugged me last night, too."

Saying it aloud unleashes something heavy in his stomach, turning over and over until Carlton feels absolutely sick. If any of this is true, then what _else_  does it mean? No one starts slipping someone drugs and hurting them in their sleep for no reason. And anyone who  _does_  have a reason...

"You sure you haven't pissed off any wackjobs or occultists lately, Spencer?" he asks quietly.

"I'm surprised you listed those as two different things, but... no. Not unless you count me having to break the news to Gus that there's no such thing as the Great Pumpkin."

Carlton doesn't bother asking or even wondering whether or not that's a joke. He's suddenly very, very tired, and he knows he needs to get  _some_  kind of rest today if he's going to stay up again tonight.

 

*

 

After coming to the conclusion that there are no cameras hidden in or around Spencer's apartment, and thus no way for the perpetrator to be sure whether Spencer is being protected or not, Carlton decides to stay in his living room this time. He also parks his car down the road, just in case.

For the third night in a row, Carlton sits up, alert, while Spencer sleeps, and he can't find it in him to mind at all.

Though part of him does feel very odd, actually keeping guard  _in_  his home now—and not only because it's more personal or intimate. It offers him the luxury of being comfortable even as he listens intently for anything unnatural, of not being confined by a suit, of something soft to lie back on, of  _space_ to stretch his legs, at the very least... All things he never has on stakeouts. As much of a relief as it should be, it doesn't quite feel right.

Of course, he's also never had to help someone figure out who was breaking into their home and hurting them in the night. There are a lot of things he'd never done until Spencer came along.

He tries to embrace it. The best he can, at least, while nearly every slight noise stills his heart and has him going for his gun. And while he has only his phone to occupy his time lest he give possible intruders too much of a warning.

He finds himself pacing. He finds himself manically searching over the walls, like he did earlier. He damn near finds himself ripping the head off of one of Spencer's toys in case there might be a camera inside.

He... needs to calm down.

Still, he finds himself checking in on Spencer once every twenty minutes or so and whenever he hears a cough or the mere rustling of blankets. And he of course only finds Spencer alone and safe.

It's about 3 A.M. when he finally hears a real noise. A  _groan_ , tearing him out of his delirium and sending him sprinting, gun ready, past Spencer's door and into—

Carlton sees no shape in the room but him, or even an open window, and is inclined to believe for a moment that he was wrong yet again. But, as he lowers his gun, he notices that Spencer didn't react to him crashing in. His eyes are still closed—but  _squeezed_  shut, like he's in pain, and his hands are both moving along his stomach— _oh, shit._

"Spencer, stop!"

As he holsters his gun and moves to keep Spencer's hands from scratching himself, he can't help but think about how  _stupid_  he was for really thinking it would be a person breaking in and doing it to him. Granted, he never ruled out the possibility of an animal, and if it had been a squirrel he'd have been  _just_  as happy to shoot... But this just. Makes  _so_  much more fucking sense. God.

Spencer struggles much more than Carlton thought he'd be capable of, especially in his sleep. But he pins his hands down quickly enough and manages to wake him up by shouting his name a few times.

"Lass—what?" he finally says, blinking his eyes open. Before he can get the wrong idea, Carlton lets go of him and steps back. "What's... Did it happen? Did you—?"

"It's you, Spencer," he tells him a bit breathlessly. "You were doing it to yourself. Clearly it's some kind of compulsion, or sleep disorder..." Carlton frowns deeply, watching him inspect his newest scars and likely come to terms. "...You should see a doctor. For—for whatever's making you do this, and for... all of those. Before you get an infection. You know what, I'll take you right now. Just—"

"Wait—Lassie, slow down." Carlton looks back to him, and Spencer sits further up. "Listen, I—thank you, for  _all_  of this, honestly. But taking me to the doctor is only gonna saddle me with a hospital bill I can't afford."

"You don't have health insurance?"

"...Do I  _look_  like I have health insurance?"

 _Fair enough,_  he thinks. And it seems to be evident enough on his face because Spencer continues, after a yawn,

"If I've really been doing it to myself this whole time... shit. Maybe I can just wear gloves when I sleep? And if my hands have little minds of their own and they're too smart for that... I guess if I have to sleep in a straight jacket for the rest of my life, that's not all bad," he adds with a breathy laugh.

As much as he'd like to take Spencer to the doctor anyway, the gloves sound like a decent way to stave it off for now.

"Fine," Carlton says sharply. "Sounds like my services are officially no longer needed."

" _Actually_ —" Spencer shoots forward, and Carlton wishes it wasn't such a relief to hear and see. "Could you—fuck, trust me, I hate to ask this and you've done enough for me when I don't even  _remember_ the last favor I've done for you, but... Do you think you could stay one more night? Just to make sure it works."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for sexual manipulation/deception. It's, you know. Demons.

And that's how, later that morning, Carlton finds himself perusing expensive anti-inflammatory ointments in a nearby pharmacy.

Spencer didn't even ask him to. He only said that he wasn't going to bother buying some for himself, that he'd be fine without anything, that he was sure he wouldn't get an infection—and of  _course_  he'd know for sure because he's a "psychic." Carlton realizes, while checking the 'uses' section on the back of a bottle, that this means he feels responsible for him.

It feels oddly domestic of him, even.

But it's not, he insists to himself.  _It's not._  He's just helping Spencer out. And that's what he continues to tell himself as, later at work, he starts researching self-injurious and sleep disorders.

Some people, it seems,  _have_  had experiences similar to what's going on with Spencer. So it isn't entirely out there. But it also seems that the extent to which he's doing it is rare or even unheard of, and there's little to no explanation from professionals either way. The only concrete thing he can find is that it happens mainly to people who already have a history of mental illness.

He doesn't know if that's a thing he should try to bring up. Maybe he should just put in more effort to convince him to see a doctor, or at least Guster.

" _Self-injury during sleep_?" comes O'Hara's voice from behind him when he least expects him, very nearly making him jump. "...What's going on, Carlton?"

She sounds concerned. He wonders if she would go the lengths that he's gone for Spencer, were he in that position. Or if she might go even further and think nothing of it.

Meanwhile, he wants to tell her not to sneak up on him like that. But he's caught too far off guard to think of anything particularly derisive, and instead simply tells her,

"It's... for a friend."

Carlton regrets that immediately. He meant to say 'case'—why the  _hell_ didn't he just say case? Now she's going to think it  _is_  about him, and no matter what he says she almost certainly won't believe otherwise!

"You have... a  _friend_  who's—?"

"I get it, yeah, ha  _ha_ , the very notion of me having friends...," he grumbles before she can go on.

He spares a glance at her and sees her pout. "...I didn't mean it like—"

"However you meant it, I really am  _busy_ , O'Hara."

He honestly doesn't mean to be so rude. But once she's gone, he thinks about it and decides that it simply had to be done. This thing is, impossibly, only supposed to be between him and Spencer. And he's barely ready to admit to or even ask  _himself_ why he cares so much about it, let alone her.

 

*

 

Surprisingly to Shawn, the demon seems to relish putting on the cream that Lassiter bought for him. But then he supposes that, even if it did inflict them in the first place, it can't be the biggest fan of physical pain.

And it really does offer some relief.

"This shit was like, fifteen bucks for this  _one_  bottle," it says with surprise of its own. "Lassie's a real sweetie, isn't he? And all it really took was to see you in a little bit of trouble, a little bit of pain... I'm not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for that trope. Guy acts cold to you most of the time but can't possibly hide how much he cares about you when you're hurt?  _Classic._  Too bad you couldn't have gotten like,  _shot_  or something before I came along, or you'd probably be together by now. Then I'd have an even funner time getting him out of the way."

Shawn might be angry enough at that to scratch himself if he wasn't oh, so tired of that by now.

"Thanks for that idea, by the way," the demon laughs. "Really, you only have yourself to blame, dude. All  _I_  had to do was play up the scars you'd already inflicted and the absolute misery you were already feeling... Speaking of  _Misery_ , am I a great actor or what? I know I said I'm not a fan of  _having_ to do it, but for this one specific plan it's all pretty fuckin' satisfying!"

He knows enough about the Plan. He's heard enough of it, both directly and vaguely. He knows what the demon is trying to do, how much fun the demon is having, messing with Lassiter and with  _him_  by proxy... He's tried the best he could to fight it at every turn, but it seems that the more he does, the stronger resistance he finds.

Like a gas slowly filling up its container, the demon is getting better used to him—reaching his furthest corners, learning all his nooks and crannies. It takes so, so much of Shawn's being to feel the slightest ounce of control.

"You know what I'm gonna do, now?" the demon continues, surely knowing very well that Shawn does. But it also knows that there's nothing Shawn can do about it. It smirks at him through the mirror, and otherwise keeps on casually applying the cream.

"Now that I got him sufficiently sleep-deprived, I'm gonna seduce him. And then I'm gonna fuck him—because let's be real, he's a pain in the ass, but he's a reasonably sexy pain in the ass. At least when he isn't talking... And then I'm gonna snap his neck. It'll be quick and painless—I'll spare you that, at least. I certainly don't want a mess on my hands, or all the acid reflux that would probably come from your excessive grief or whatever... Oh, and then I'll probably fuck him a few more times.  _Then_  he's getting tied to some cinderblocks and dumped in the ocean, where he can never interfere with our—or,  _my_  cases, ever again."

 _...The main character in Misery was a writer, not an actor,_  is the only way Shawn can think to respond while preserving his dignity.

"Well, I've heard it both ways."

 

*

 

 _Just get in the bed with me,_  he said.  _Don't be stupid, Lassie, you don't need to sit in that chair all night, watching me sleep like a guard dog. It would be too creepy, anyway._

It's all fair. It's rational. And he insists—he _really_  insists that Carlton doesn't confine himself to the chair when he's the one who asked for this extra night in the first place,  _please_ , Lassie,  _don't be a prideful idiot_.

And Carlton does it. He admits to himself that he's in desperate need of a good night's sleep in an actual  _bed_ , and he crawls under Spencer's covers, and he stays as far away from Spencer's body as possible without making it seem like he thinks he'll catch a disease from him.

And still, he cannot get comfortable. Several minutes pass and he thinks he'd get better sleep in the chair, where he at least wouldn't have to suffer through an illusion of intimacy... But he's already here.

He supposes that he'll do precisely what Spencer asked him to, and simply watch him to make sure that the precautions are working.

With Spencer's back turned to him as he falls asleep, it's all the more easier. For at least a hour he remains like that, and Carlton even finds himself calming down, drifting off... And then, very abruptly, Spencer turns around, making his heart jump.

Even worse, his eyes are open.

"I can hear how fast your heart is beating, Lassie," he mutters, slightly muffled by the pillow. "...I know how much you want me. Why don't you just come and take it?"

Just then, it skips a beat. Carlton can't have heard that right.

"What?" His voice comes out like a croak.

Spencer slides closer. "Listen, I'm sure you're worried you might hurt me because of all the scratches or whatever, but I'm a big boy, Lassie. I can handle anything you give me."

Now he's much too close and Carlton is sure that he did  _indeed_  hear that right—and now he's even more hopelessly confused. He immediately sits up.

"Spencer... what are you talking about?"

It feels impossible that he even manages to speak, with his heart so painfully lodged in his throat.

"You  _know_  what I'm talking about, Lassie," Spencer says softly and earnestly as he pushes himself, up, too. "You wouldn't have said yes to being in my bed if you didn't. The proof is right here."

Then Spencer's hand is on the center of his chest, ghosting over his rapidly pounding heart. And Spencer's face is moving even closer. And Carlton is absolutely frozen.

"You want me so bad, Lassie, I know it," he breathes. "And hey, call me Cheap Trick because I  _want_  you to want me."

With that, Spencer kisses him.

For one short moment Carlton finds himself kissing back—but the moment he has the physical power to, he pulls away. No matter how much Spencer might be right or how much he  _does_  want this, he doesn't want it like this. There's something seriously wrong, here.

"Mm—no, Spencer—Shawn... you don't—"

"I  _do_."

"You don't want  _me_ ," he finds himself saying as he moves further away. "You just want to feel safe."

"What? No, Lassie—I  _love_  you."

He freezes again, staring back wide-eyed.  _No, that's—_

"And I  _need_  you right now, Lassie. Please. _Feel_  how much I need you."

Almost outside of himself, he feels Spencer take his hand and guide it, down, between his legs, to cup around Spencer's erection.

Carlton's chest bursts with unbearable heat, and Spencer moans and draws him closer, and his heart thuds violently in his ears—and before Spencer's mouth can touch his again, he tears himself away. He takes in a sharp breath and bounds right off the bed and out of the room, shouting behind him,

" _Sorry, Spencer!_ "

He makes it to the couch in the living room breathless, and _lost_ , and... hard. Oh, god, he's so hard.  _How_  is he already so hard?

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck—_

What the hell is Carlton supposed to do, here? Does he keep good on his word and stay to make sure he's alright? Except—well, shit, Spencer clearly  _isn't_ alright. But... does he stay out here? Does he march back in there and demand an explanation? Does he just leave? Would it be shitty of him to leave?

Within the minute, before he has much of a chance to understand what happened in there, he hears Spencer... evidently, taking care of himself.  _Loudly_.

Now,  _that_  is enough to get Carlton to collect his things—to not even bother grabbing everything—and to  _book_   _it_. Not only because he simply cannot just sit here and listen to that, but because he is suddenly, somehow... very, very positive of a terrifying fact:

Whoever or whatever is in that bedroom, it is  _not_  Spencer.


	5. Chapter 5

Carlton is pretty sure he stopped seriously believing in this stuff before puberty. However, being raised Catholic, the fear remained a part of him. The fear of the possibility of any of his deeds being bad, of being punished in this life and the next... of the Devil.

He hasn't thought about it in a long time. He sees enough evil in humans that he never feels a need to blame supernatural forces. But he does know that  _none_  of that, last night, was the Shawn Spencer he knows. And the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense alongside the sleep-scratching. The  _burns_ —he never got an explanation for that, did he? How could he have done  _those_  to himself by a mere compulsion?

Dammit—he doesn't like being like this. He doesn't want to fall into a conspiracy trap of just  _reaching_  for any clue that fits what he wants to believe and dismissing everything else. He is a  _detective_  and he does  _not_  do that.

Though a good detective covers all the bases, doesn't he?

Except this isn't a base. This is off the field entirely. God, if he's really considering this... he's gone completely insane.

 _...Well, even if I have, so has Spencer_ , comes a voice from the back of his head.

And he decides, for once, that he has nothing to lose, and he listens to it.

Carlton slams his car door shut, straightens his suit jacket, and starts up the church steps. The last time he was here was when he was still with Victoria. That is, when things were still good between them. Before the word "separation" had ever come out of her mouth.

He tries not to think about that as he steps inside.

Thankfully, with it being the middle of the week, the place is mostly empty. Only two or three sit scattered across the pews, likely praying for sick spouses or children or other personal tragedies. It crosses Carlton's mind for a moment that perhaps he should do that, too—but no, he has much more  _direct_  way of handling this.

His hand unconsciously moves to his pocket before he remembers that he isn't on police business. Surely his badge wouldn't make a difference, anyway.

"Can someone tell me where I'd find a priest?" he asks aloud, receiving alarmed looks in response. He supposes he must have interrupted their prayers, and rolls his eyes. "Hey, if the Big Man really cares, I highly doubt that any of you stopping to answer my question would interfere with some divine miracle—"

"Can I help you?" comes an old man's voice, at which he turns and sees precisely who he was looking for.

"Yes! You can," Carlton says, quickly approaching him. "Would you mind... going somewhere private?"

 

*

 

Shawn expected Lassiter to avoid him like the plague after last night. Or maybe he just hoped.

The demon, meanwhile, expected him to return much earlier. If the initial seduction didn't work and neither did masturbating loudly, then  _surely_  at least the curiosity and desire would eat away at him, like it does all humans.

As it turns out, they were both wrong.

Lassiter shows up at his door that evening, without warning, and immediately turns him around and cuffs his hands together.

"Oh—!" the demon shouts, in very genuine surprise. "Woah, hey, Lassie... This some kinda kinky thing?"

Carlton expected to hear something like that. It doesn't faze him, and he simply leads Spencer back inside, kicking the door shut behind him.

"It's for your own good," he tells him.

"That still sounds like it might be about a kinky thing."

"Well, it's—" He decides to let it go, and instead, "Here, just sit down. Do you... remember last night?"

"Uh." Spencer raises an eyebrow. "I remember going to sleep and waking up with you and half of your stuff gone. What's going on?"

Memory loss  _was_  listed as a sign, and he thinks that if Spencer was lying about not remembering, he'd have some kind of tell. But he won't let himself believe it wholeheartedly quite yet.

"Okay, um—this is going to sound absolutely crazy, coming from me," Carlton starts, pacing. The past few hours feel far more real now than they did then. "It would even sound crazy coming from you. But you have to trust, Spencer, that I wouldn't be suggesting it if I hadn't spent the past  _week_  considering all other possibilities."

Slowly, Spencer's frown softens. And he nods and says. gently,

"I get you. What is it?"

Carlton takes a deep breath. The key to this, when he can't simply have the unwavering confidence that Spencer usually does, is to just blurt it out and deal with the consequences later.

Ultimately, he tells him just about the same thing that he told Father Wesley earlier:

"I believe that you may be getting... possessed. During your sleep. By some kind of... demon. And that  _that's_  why and how you've been hurting yourself, and... acting strange."

With that, he lets his breath go, and shuts his eyes, and waits for Spencer to laugh at him.

Instead, after several seconds of silence, he hears,

"Huh. You're a  _lot_  smarter than I gave you credit for... Maybe I really should have listened to him."

"What?" Carlton opens his eyes and frowns. "Listened to who?"

He rolls his eyes. "To  _Shawn_ , duh."

It admittedly takes him a moment—maybe he's just so used to Spencer saying nonsense bullshit, or maybe he just never genuinely expected this to be true, but as soon as he understands, he takes a leap back. Spencer's eyes—or what looks like them—follow him coolly.

"...You're possessed right  _now_?" God, he never imagined he'd have to say that sentence.

"If you want to get technical," the demon shrugs, "it's  _him_  who's possessed right now. I'm the possess- _er_. I'm—possessing him. You get it."

Carlton would be inclined to believe that this was just Spencer messing with him if the look in his eyes wasn't so... blank. He can't believe he didn't see it before. He found his behavior odd, sure, but how could it have taken him so  _long_  to realize that it truly wasn't Spencer looking back at him?

He remembers asking Father Wesley, earlier, what kind of proof of demons that he could offer him. Some kind of test he could do on a potentially possessed person and know for sure.

Holy water hurts them, he said. Speaking in Latin would compel them to respond with such. The man himself has "never witnessed one so powerful," but if anything floats in mid-air around them, or their eyes glow black, that's a given.

Now, with an utter lack of soul in Spencer's normally beaming stare, he doesn't feel the need to search for any of that kind of proof.

"Well, you won't be for much longer," he tells it, standing his ground. "I have a—"

"A priest coming to exorcise me?" the demon asks casually, then rolls its eyes again and sighs. "Yeah, I figured... This ain't my first rodeo, Detective. It's more like... my third. Or fourth. You know how hard it gets to keep track of these kind of things. But I assure you, my fifth rodeo won't have to be for a long, long time. I fully intend to ride Shawn out until he inevitably gets killed by a criminal out for revenge, or... something. I don't think I could prevent that without doing away with the psychic thing entirely, and it's just too fun."

"Sounds about right. The Father  _did_  say that demons were pathetic, miserable creatures who'd do anything they could to get a taste of mortality." That doesn't seem to annoy the demon nearly as much as Carlton hoped. So he merely continues: "And you certainly won't get too much more. I'd like to see you  _try_  to get out of those cuffs."

The demon sighs again, and then purses its lips in a way that is very Spencer-like. But only for a moment before locking eyes with him.

Spencer's shoulder strain for two seconds before Carlton hears a  _crack_.

_Oh, holy—_

Eyes suddenly feeling as though they fill his whole face, Carlton takes another leap back and draws his gun. And he watches, horrified, as the demon in Spencer's body pulls his now-broken hand out of one cuff and then pushes itself up to a standing position.

It brushes some imaginary dirt off and looks at the broken hand, fake-seething.

" _Ouch_... I completely forgot what broken bones feel like. A lot more manageable than you'd think, though. In TV they always hype it up so bad. You know what's  _much_ worse? Being buried alive," it tells him as-a-matter-of-factly. Then it seems to finally start caring about what's pointed at him. "Oh... you want to shoot me, Detective?"

And it smirks and steps forward.

"I  _will_  if I need to," he growls, just like he's threatened to any other scumbag.

"You sure about that?" It laughs and continues walking towards him. "Because I can guarantee, yeah, you  _would_  get rid of me that way. But you'd have to kill Shawn to do it. Anything less and it'll just slow me down—and honestly? I don't think you have it in you to really hurt him..."

" _Try me_."

It laughs again.

"You know I can see his memories, right? I can watch 'em like a movie reel or like... a bunch of Youtube videos in your recommended playlist that you finally watch when you're bored enough. And you've  _threatened_  to shoot him a decent handful of times—but in reality? You've never done so much as pinch him. Yeah, you've manhandled him a few times... But I'm sure you know that he liked it."

The demon's chest is practically touching the end of Lassiter's gun, now.

Inside, Shawn has been screaming and fighting with every last bit of himself since his hand broke. And not from the pain nearly so much as his fear for Lassiter—for his desperate need for all this to  _stop_ , to just get  _out_ of here.

All of Shawn's effort amounts, now, to a single tear rolling out the corner of his eye and down his cheek. The demon wipes it away without a second thought.

"...But uh, hey," it continues, when Lassiter doesn't budge, "I am a good sport. I'll play along."

Carlton says nothing,  _does_  nothing but hold his expression and his grip as the demon puts two fingers under the barrel of the gun. But then it moves it up until it's pressing against the hollow of Shawn's throat. And its smirk drops. It's trembling intensely and much more suddenly than it should be able to.

"Kill me, Lassie. You gotta kill me."

God, no.

He  _knows_  that that isn't Spencer talking—he knows without a shadow of a goddamn  _doubt_ , but he can't help that his heart drops into his stomach. Or that his own jaw begins to tremble. He can't stop it.

And they both know the demon can tell.

"Lassie, please—you don't know what it's been like, these past few weeks," it sobs, using the words that Shawn has been trying so hard to get out, "to be stuck inside my own body and not have control over anything... It's the only way you're gonna get him out. I want him  _out_ , Lassie, I don't care if I have to die to do it, I'm so  _tired_  of this—fuck, Lassie,  _please_. Kill me  _now_!"

Lassiter  _is_  at least smart enough, it seems, to know that that second half was a lie. But not smart enough not to lower the gun.

Or maybe just  _too_  emotional. Either way—

"Good choice," the demon says politely, all the faux-distress suddenly gone. "But you do leave me in kind of a pickle—that is, how I'm supposed to make  _this_  look like self-defense."

Without skipping a beat, the demon grabs the gun, still in Lassiter's hands, and pulls the trigger on its own foot.

" _OH_ —!" they both shout, but Carlton's is arguably louder as he jumps back and stares at Spencer's bloody foot in terror and shock.

"You—"

"Real big disappointment that I couldn't just fuck and dump you," it laughs—but now, in an evident amount of real pain. "...But you gotta do what you gotta do."

Carlton catches the demon glance at his gun again. Understanding what its intentions with him are, and still feeling its sheer physical strength from moments ago, he promptly unlocks the magazine and tosses his gun as far away from them as he can.

"Try painting a scene without that," he growls.

The demon clicks Shawn's tongue. "Fair enough."

Then it makes an abrupt break for the kitchen. But Carlton is fast enough to tackle him to the floor before it can get its hands on anything sharp—and he hears another  _crack_  against the tile. He really fucking hopes that wasn't one of Spencer's ribs.

In the next moment—possibly due to his worry making him let up—he's flipped onto his back and has the wind knocked spectacularly out of him. Before the demon can get up, at least, Carlton manages to wrap his legs around the backs of Spencer's knees and bring it back down.

"AUGH—Fine, you wanna do this  _mano y mano_ , Lassie?" it spits, with a voice he has  _never_  heard come out of Spencer, as it goes for his throat.

He grabs Spencer's wrists at nearly the last second, and finds himself shaking with the effort it takes to combat the demon's strength. At the same time, in spite of all that's happened, he does his best not to add any extra damage to Spencer's broken hand. He won't hurt him any worse if he can help it.

Especially when he knows pain is hardly even a deterrent to this thing.

" _Dude, how are you even this strong?_ " it grunts, struggling similarly. "You better not say the 'power of love'..."

"I arrest things like you for a  _living_ , that's how!" Carlton manages to shout, and then with a burst of adrenaline, shoves the demon back onto its back.

He only has the high-ground for a second before Spencer's teeth are sinking into his forearm.

" _Jesus fucking_ —"

In his brief distraction the demon's fist manages a rough hit on Carlton's jaw—and the rest of its body following as the back of Carlton's head smacks against tile. Luckily not hard enough to do any lasting damage. Or he hopes.

At least not hard enough to keep him from realizing, as the demon lifts him up in his stunned state by the shirt, a grin of malice widening on its face, what it intends to do.  _Oh, hell no._

Carlton hurls his entire body to the left, finally ripping himself out of the demon's grasp enough for him to get some footing, however unbalanced.

"Oh—you know what, I'm getting  _really_  tired of this!" it shouts, voice ragged as it pushes itself back up several feet away. "Keeping Shawn almost doesn't seem worth it—except no, that's a lie, it absolutely is. Even if I have to decimate this whole apartment before I kill you. I can just get a new one, right?"

That's just talk, Carlton is sure. And he's sure because if it really had any advantage other than some extra strength and endurance, it would be killing him already.

"What exactly do you even  _want_  with Shawn, anyway?" he asks, low and even. Eyes narrowed. Feet shifting.

The demon knows what he's doing, but plays along.  _Shifts_  along. Circles him. Breathes deep and shrugs far too casually.

"I like his life,  _duh_. Gus is fun. The  _fake psychic_  business is fun. Even his ADD and all his sensory stuff is pretty fun—or at least unique enough that I can honestly say I've never experienced it before. We'd even get along well enough if he wasn't holding a stupid grudge about me controlling his body... Really, the only thing he and I don't really agree on is  _you_."

It pauses to gauge Lassiter's reaction. Nothing visible, but oh, it's there.

"...Me, huh?"

"Yeah. See, you clearly just get in the way of shit—but for some reason,  _he's_ all sweet on you... Weird human stuff, I guess."

Carlton won't let himself fall for that.

The demon begs to differ.

"It's really  _unfortunate_  for him, honestly," it continues, making a point of faking sympathy. "I swear, I wanted this to be clean to spare him—and myself, by proxy—the ickier feelings. But now that I have no choice, and he's going to miss you loudly and painfully either  _way_... I might as well go the whole nine miles,  _mightn't_ I? Or is it the green mile? Or am I thinking of the longest yard—"

"Shut up," Carlton tells him, shoulders rising and falling with each heavy breath. He can't stand to listen to it talk like that—like  _him_. "Just...  _shut up_."

"Hm." It purses its lips. "Rude. You know, maybe I should let him have the reigns for just a few seconds after I kill you—so he can  _really_  know what it feels like to hold your lifeless body in his hands..."

Just then, there's another tear at the corner of its eye. Definitely more impressive than before, but just as easily wiped away.

Carlton, meanwhile, has the demon right where he wants it.

"Maybe you should actually get close to killing me before you think about that."

It smirks. "Thanks for reminding me."

On the same beat, it charges him—just as Carlton expected it would, and just as he prepared for. That is, as they'd slowly circled each other, he positioned himself right on the threshold. So now, as the demon surely intends to claw his eyes out, or knock him cold, or snap his neck, Carlton simply drops.

Just like that, momentum is lost. He gets a knee to the face in the process but the demon still goes down on its stomach—on the carpet, where Spencer won't collect any more damage.

Which gives him time to wrap his arms around his chest and arms like a vice. That  _time_ , however, not accounting for the fight that the demon gives him, nor the sensation that his arms may break at any moment.

" _You think I can't wear you down, Lassiter?_ " it laughs something unholy. "You might be good, but you're still human. I can keep this up as long as Shawn's body isn't dead—and you wouldn't let that happen, would you?"

It punctuates its taunts by digging its fingernails into Carlton's hands and shoulders—anywhere it can reach with mobility cut off at the elbow. By knocking its skull back into Carlton's the hardest it can. By knocking  _Carlton_ against any surface it can manage with the full weight of its body. By—

The front door swings open, at which every last muscle fiber in Carlton's arms seem to scream in relief despite not relaxing quite yet.

He has no energy left to speak, but he's sure his position gives away that  _it's about damn time you showed up_.

The demon, however, having stilled for but a split second, now thrashes even more violently.

" _NO—you're not doing this, not this time, I am NOT letting this one go, I worked TOO fucking hard—_ "

Father Wesley, in all his apparent terror, wastes no time in stepping forward and splashing holy water on the both of them. It feels perfectly normal to Carlton. The demon screams—the first he's heard of it—in  _excruciating_  pain.

"Leave of your own free will, demon," Father Wesley starts, "or you will suffer worse—"

" _You have NO idea what you're messing with,_ " it laughs again, continuing in a language that Carlton has never heard—but which he can be sure is a real one. An ancient one.

But it's cut off, again, with more holy water, and,

"Just keep holding on, Carlton—I've got him!"

The next minute passes as though he's in a glass bowl. It's a minute of pure pain, of his entire being focused on keeping this demon still, just barely hearing the Father's Latin chant and the demon's cursing. Like it's in the distance. Like he's got cups over his ears or they've simply turned off in favor of the one thing he  _can_  do.

The one thing he's good for, he thinks. This is it. So he cannot,  _will not_  fuck it up.

And then, everything... stops.

The noise. The thrashing. The glass bowl. His own heartbeat. For a moment he wonders if he's somehow died, from this. If the demon won and they're all gone.

Then Carlton realizes that he can still feel his arms and, more importantly... Shawn inside of them. His heart beats again and he finally,  _finally_  lets go and forgets his pain and forgets Father Wesley and everything and everyone else in the fucking  _world_  as he frantically turns him around—

And he can't help but panic when he doesn't immediately see Shawn's chest moving, but his heart is put back together in a mere few seconds.

"Lass—" he just barely manages before going into a brief coughing fit—before even opening his eyes. He thinks he almost forgot  _how_  to.

The sheer relief of having control over his body for the first time in weeks, in fact, is enough to distract Shawn from the horrific throbbing in most parts of it. But only long enough for him to see Lassiter's banged-up face above him and give him a single, broken smile.

"Shawn? ...Is that you? Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, and yes," he says with the best laugh he can muster.

Before he knows it he's wrapped in Lassiter's arms again, not at all like before but tight enough that there's  _pressure_ , that he can feel some warmth other than his own—his cheek pressed against Lassiter's chest, his other in Lassiter's hand, his own good hand clutching at him... And every last tear that he couldn't shed in these past weeks, it seems, falling freely out of his face.

Shawn melts into him and lets them fall.

Carlton keeps holding onto him, meanwhile, and lets shaky breath after shaky breath leave his body.

Somehow, both of them nearly forget enough about the world not to realize—

"Actually, I think I have to rescind my last answer," Shawn mumbles, with another laugh. "I'm not okay at all, Lassie. I need a fucking hospital."


	6. Chapter 6

Carlton is examined for a potential concussion and given antiseptic for his worse cuts. Other than that, he refuses to take up any doctor's time when Spencer needs much more attention, and when  _he_  needs to be there to make sure that he gets it.

His badge really comes in handy in these situations.

"You could have just waited outside, you know, like everyone else does," Shawn tells him, later when he's supposed to be 'resting.' "The doctors weren't gonna fuck up just because you weren't watching."

"After tonight, Spencer, I don't think I can trust anyone for a while," he says simply.

That's fair enough. Silly as it might seem, Shawn really appreciates it anyway. Having someone familiar at his side through all the treatment at the very least—he's got scars and bruises from head to toe, a broken and very swollen hand, and a goddamn  _hole_  in his foot. Now he's confined to a bed for probably the next few days.

And that's just the physical part.

"Even less than you already trust everyone, I'm sure," Shawn adds with a smirk.

Carlton hums in agreement but otherwise says nothing for the next half minute, as he struggles to come to terms with the implications that tonight has given him. That... demons are real. Which means Hell is probably real therefore so is some kind of Good Afterlife and shouldn't that part be a relief?—But all he can think of is all the  _evil_  in the world and all that he's personally faced, and  _how much of it was inhuman?_  Has he put people away who only did what they did because were possessed, just like Spencer?

Except with Spencer... outside of attempting to get rid of Carlton, the demon wasn't committing any crimes. Didn't even seem to plan to. And somehow, weighing him down even heavier than all the existential panic, Carlton finds himself coming back to—

"That wasn't you that whole time, was it? Everything about waking up with scratches, and not knowing what to do, and needing my help, that was—"

"The demon tricking you. Yeah." Just saying that dries up Shawn's mouth.

"How long before were you—" He hesitates, unsure if it's even his business. But he  _needs_  to know. "...not you?"

"Um." It feels like so long that Shawn wants to laugh when he remembers how short of a time it really was—and then feels deeply ashamed when he remembers why it happened in the first place. "Since about a week before that sausage-murder case."

So Spencer wasn't even the one to solve that case. None of the rudeness or otherwise ignoring Carlton was  _him_  at all, and the fact that  _that_  of all things makes him feel better... subsequently, forces bile up his chest.

"I can't believe I was so fucking stupid," he finds himself muttering aloud as his eyes trace the pattern on the hospital carpet. "I should have  _known_  it wasn't you, I should have seen it sooner—"

"Lassie, you don't—" A sort of sob-like laugh rips through him and presses him deeper into the hospital bed. "You were the only one to notice it at  _all_."

Carlton's shoulders perk up, and he looks at Spencer with less shame, now.

"Not even Gus or my Dad, the couple times 'I' spoke to him...," Shawn continues quietly. "The thing possessing me was too good to slip up. It knew how to act like me—it  _already_  acted like me. It even—fuck, it  _told_  me that the reason it picked me was because we had the same personality..." He doesn't know why he admits that, but there's no going back. "Thank god we happened to disagree on one thing."

Perhaps these past weeks have given him a new kind of fearlessness, or he's running high on some kind of adrenaline or something else the demon left behind, or maybe the painkillers are just kicking in—but Shawn sinks into his pillow and smiles, and lets his good hand hang off the side of the bed until it finds Lassiter's.

Carlton feels the touch along with a stutter of his heartbeat and, outside of himself, finds that his fingers are the first to link with Shawn's.

 _Spencer just wants to feel safe,_  is how he rationalizes it.

"You mean that the only reason I found out is because it wanted to kill me," is how he responds.

"That, and nuance. It didn't care much for nuance."  _For our nuance,_  he means. "Hey—what  _was_  the thing that made you realize, anyway?"

Regardless of how expertly the demon tricked those far closer to Spencer, he wishes that he could truthfully say that he realized it on his own. He wishes he could tell him  _that frightened look you managed to push through_.

But even if that was when Carlton first suspected something might be seriously wrong, that wasn't the question. So it can't be his answer.

It takes him quite the moment of apprehension and deliberation to give an answer, though when he does it's entirely honest:

"You told me you loved me."

It comes out even, simple, casual. Inside, Carlton's throat tightens indefinitely.

What he doesn't see, as he returns his gaze to the floor, is Shawn's eyes widening, his brow furrowing upward, his mouth dropping just slightly open... his lips drawing into a pout. His own throat tightening. His heart breaking.

 _Oh._  Shawn's tongue feels so heavy he thinks he might choke on it.

"Lassie...," he starts to say, with almost no idea how he's going to finish—

And then it doesn't matter because before he can even form his mouth around another sound, the door to the hospital room opens and two familiar faces rush inside.

"SHAWN!" Gus and Henry shout simultaneously, the worry and relief stretched plainly across their faces.

Carlton promptly lets go of Spencer's hand—both so he doesn't have to feel Spencer let go, and because he knows that he's no longer needed here. Surely Spencer's best friend and father can provide far better comfort than the presence of a man who can only remind him of his own trauma.

"Shawn, what the hell happened? We heard you were shot—"

"I swear to God, Shawn, if this is because of some case you got into without telling me—"

"You can't save that for later, Mr. Spencer? But actually—Shawn, I was about to say the same thing!"

Rather than allow himself to be overwhelmed by their questions or dignify his injured state immediately, Shawn shifts his attention back to Lassiter, who is now halfway to the door. And he frowns.

"Where you goin', Lassie?"

Carlton honestly didn't think he'd be noticed. It only cements in his decision to leave, though.

"Home," he answers without looking back. "I need some damn sleep."

 

*

 

The agreed story is that Shawn was attempting to tail a suspect on his own, and the guy noticed him, turned around, and damn near beat him to death. It was all he could do to fight back long enough before Lassiter, who luckily happened to be tailing the same guy, swooped in and saved him. Unfortunately, with his attention focused on getting Shawn medical attention as fast as possible, the guy got away.

It's 'agreed' as in that's what Shawn tells everyone, and when those people approach Lassiter about it, he doesn't deny it. Why would he, when Shawn made sure to paint him as the hero that he was in reality?

Though now he  _is_  saddled with filing a fake police report about an fake assailant whom he found suspicious for a fake reason, and who can never possibly be found.

No one but them and Father Wesley know the truth, and Shawn intends to keep it that way. The only person he thinks would even believe him is Gus—and  _that_  would basically mean handing over his dignity. Yeah, he has intimate proof of the existence of demons now. Doesn't mean he wants to admit he was wrong.

Whereas to Gus and many others Shawn's incident came out of the blue and nothing otherwise changed at all, his life quickly returns to normal. Soon after being discharged from the hospital, his two weeks of being possessed feels like a mere bad dream.

That's why, he supposes, it takes him several more days to muster up the self-assuredness that he needs to go and knock on Lassiter's door.

Carlton doesn't know whether or not he's surprised when he opens it.

He can't keep himself from reacting, however, upon seeing Spencer leaning against his doorway just as he might normally do.

"Where are your crutches?"

"Eh." Shawn shrugs. "I got this foot brace thing—and I made the walk from the taxi to your door just fine, so I think I'm good for now."

 _You're an idiot,_  he wants to tell him—at the same time that he wants to ask,  _What did you take a taxi here for?_  His brain compromises that by keeping his mouth shut and reaching for the spray bottle of holy water that he got from Father Wesley.

It does nothing but make Shawn sputter and screw up his face, and subsequently give Carlton a rush of relief. As well as a tiny, amused smile as he watches him wipe it off.

"Had to be sure," he says, stepping aside to let Spencer drag himself in—but not so far away that he couldn't catch him if he fell.

"Fair," Shawn mutters, trying his best to retain a normal gait.

Though he knows he doesn't have to worry about suffering through any pity, here. It's one of the things he likes best about Lassiter—and he might say so if he weren't here for much more important things.

"I'm gonna get right down to it," he forces himself to say before he can chicken out. "I know that there were some...  _things_  that I—or the demon, said, about me—"

"Don't worry about it," Carlton practically snaps, with a quick shake of his head and averting his eyes. That is, he turns around and walks to his kitchen.

He expected this as soon as he'd heard it mention the ' _fake psychic business_.'

Shawn frowns. "What?"

"I said you don't have to worry about it." He opens his cupboard and pulls out a whiskey glass. It occurs to him that he does this as a reflex every time Spencer visits for whatever reason. "If I was going to tell anyone, I would have done it already, don't you think?"

Now Shawn frowns deeper and has to wrack his brain for a second to figure out what Lassiter thinks he's talking about.

_Oh._

"No, that's not—"  _Don't insult me like that, of course I know you wouldn't._  "...Listen, Lassie. You—you did a lot for me this week, and I—"

"I was doing my job, Spencer," Carlton tells him, brave enough to face him again, if only briefly. "Which is to protect civilians. You're a civilian."

"No."

Carlton sighs. "Consulting for the police department doesn't mean you're not—"

" _No_ , you weren't  _just_  doing your job, Lassie!" Shawn breathes an incredulous laugh and limps the fastest he can to the kitchen counter. "You're a homicide detective. A civilian comes to you saying they're in danger but they don't know from who, you delegate it to a street cop like McNab at  _best_. Or you tell them to see a psychiatrist—or you refer them to Gus and I, which admittedly wasn't an option here, but... You didn't do that. You stayed up, night after night, to help what you  _thought_  was me figure it out. You lost sleep and then you went  _way_  outside your usual range of belief and actually talked to a  _priest_  to get me exorcised..."

Unable to argue with any of that, Carlton simply stares back at him, weighed down where he stands.

"So, uh,  _yeah_ , you did  _way_  more than your job, Lassie," Shawn continues, softer now. "You weren't being a cop. You were being... a friend. A really fucking  _good_  friend—and it's for that reason that..."

In spite of all the time he spent mentally rehearsing this and hashing out the best way to string it together, his throat tightens. And his heart threatens to stop beating for good. And he can't fucking have that, so he promptly hits himself in the chest to get it going again, and he forces the words out—

"That I just...  _can't_  stand by and let you believe that—that the  _only_  reason I would have said those things to you is if I was possessed."

Shawn meets his eyes in earnest. Carlton remains frozen, still only staring back in silence for much too long before the question finally leaves him in a breath,

"What things?"

This was the part Shawn was afraid of, regardless of how much he prepared.

"...Most things," he admits. "Anything that wasn't to do with the origins of all my scars—most things really  _weren't_ , necessarily, lies. It wasn't—the demon didn't like to lie, I don't think. Not when it didn't have to. And most of its ideas for lies or tricks still came from the truth—from  _me_ , one way or another..."

By now he's sure it's obvious what he means, if for no other reason than the growing shock on Lassiter's face. At the same time, he's overwhelmed by shame for being such a coward that he couldn't be less vague about it.

After a few seconds of silence, Shawn decides he can't take any more of it and immediately starts toward the door—but then stops, again, to say,

"Whether or not you feel the same, I just—thought you deserved to know after saving my life.  _More_  than my life, really... And protecting me in the first place, even if it wasn't really me. So. Thanks."

Air returns to Carlton's lungs the moment Spencer's back faces him.

And still, he has to genuinely ask himself—did he hear all that right? Did he experience any of this accurately? Is this even happening at all?

_Did he really just come to my house to tell me that he—?_

"Shawn, wait _—_ "

His name flies out of Carlton's mouth not in some spark of bravery, but in terrible fear that Shawn will leave and he'll lose his only chance, or that none of this may even turn out to be true.

And Carlton's feet spontaneously carry him across the kitchen before Shawn can even turn all the way around, but his voice is stuck once he meets Shawn's eyes again.

Now, Shawn is patient enough, but after several seconds of Lassiter's mouth opening and closing, he has to be concerned.

"...Lassie—?"

"You're such a jackass," he finally blurts out, hand swiping over his eyes.

Shawn's eyebrows shoot upward. "Oh. Well, I—"

He cuts him off again, now with an uncharacteristically sharp laugh.

"You're so—you're completely shameless in a way I could never even want to understand, and you infuriate me and make me so fucking  _jealous_  of everything you can do and everything you  _get away_  with, and..." Carlton runs a hand through his hair and laughs again, mostly at himself for the utter absurdity of actually, finally  _confessing_  this.

"...You make me feel like I've lost my goddamn mind! Because in spite of all the shit you pull I'm so  _relieved_  every time you manage to annoy your way out of getting killed or otherwise just  _show up_  for another case, and I would—dammit, for  _some_  stupid reason, I... would protect you. I'd fucking protect you from anything at  _any_  time, given the chance. No matter how much it might have been your own damn fault in the first place—"

If Shawn didn't kiss him right then, he might have never shut up.  _Oh, how the tables have turned._

With only one good hand to grab with and one good foot to balance on, he wraps both arms around Lassiter's neck to pull him down, hoping that he can provide the rest of the balance. But mostly, not caring whatsoever if he winds up taking them both to the ground because he simply  _needs_  to kiss him  _now_.

Carlton has to remind himself that this isn't like before—that Shawn is absolutely himself right now, that he clearly, truly wants this—

But Rome wasn't destroyed in a day. And paranoia and trauma don't disappear in a week. He reaches for the holy water again.

" _Oh_ —" Shawn pulls back and swipes at his now-moist neck, Lassiter's arm around his back the only thing keeping him from toppling over. "Really, Lassie?"

He tosses the bottle aside, now.

"I had to be sure."

And they both forget about the world, again _—_ about the taxi that's still waiting outside and the whiskey on the counter and their recent brush with death... as Carlton threads his fingers with Shawn's, then pulls him close for another,  _much_  longer kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in time for the end of Horror week of Psychtober! This has been sort of a baby idea hanging out in my brain since last Halloween, and actually fleshing it out was an impulse I couldn't resist.
> 
> I think I really just wanted to do another 'Lassiter shows eactly how much he loves and cares for Shawn by protecting him when it counts' fic.
> 
> Recommended listening:
> 
> ~ [psych halloween mix](https://8tracks.com/captainlucifer/a-very-psych-halloween) ~ / ~ [autumn shassie mix](https://8tracks.com/captainlucifer/autumn-in-santa-barbara) ~


End file.
